Saturday, July 15, 2006

Gov. Ed Rendell recently signed a bill raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania.

Rendell said the higher wage will help 420,000 Pennsylvania residents who are earning minimum wage. Rendell says a lot of things that have little to do with reality.

Do you know anyone earning minimum wage? Teenagers working at burger joints are in such demand that they often start at a salary much higher than the minimum wage.

I picked up a Sunday newspaper and looked through the help wanted section. There wasn't a single listing for a minimum wage job. But there were dozens of job ads seeking unskilled help for starting salaries almost twice the current minimum wage of $5.15 per hour.

A pharmaceutical company is hiring assemblers and light packers for $9.50 per hour. A cleaning company is willing to pay $8 to $10 for workers. One firm is seeking packers at $10.95 an hour. Another firm is seeking clerical help at $10. Foundry workers will be trained starting at $10 per hour. Another company is looking for machine operators, material handlers and laborers and is willing to pay a starting salary of $11.50. All this in just one medium-size newspaper that serves one county.

Where are those 400,000 workers that Rendell is trying to help and why can't he point them to the jobs paying $10.00 per hour? Has Rendell considered paying for a subscription to the local newspaper for these folks? It will be a lot cheaper than forcing employers to raise salaries. And why did Rendell wait four years into his term as governor to help these people? Didn't these people need the higher salaries in 2003 or 2004 or 2005? Does it have anything to do with 2006 being an election year?

And don't start with the tired argument that the state legislature is controlled by Republicans so Rendell couldn't get the higher minimum wage bill passed.

When Rendell wanted to raise the state income tax by $1 billion in 2003, he had no problem finding Republicans to go along.

When Rendell wanted to bring 51,000 slot machines to Pennsylvania in 2004, he found plenty of Republican legislators to pass the bill.

When Rendell wanted to raise the salaries of Harrisburg politicians in 2005, he found enough legislators awake at 2 a.m. to get the job done.

Same goes for Rendell's tax rebate plan for low-income seniors that was recently approved by the legislature or Rendell's exorbitant $26 billion budget for the new fiscal year that increases state spending at twice the rate of inflation.

If Rendell wants something passed, he has enough Republican lackeys in the legislature to do it. Which brings us back to my original question. Is there any connection between the passage of a higher minimum wage with the fact that Rendell and most of the legislature face the voters less than four months from now?

Assuming there really are 400,000 Pennsylvania workers earning minimum wage, here's another problem I have with Rendell's plan to help them pay for basic necessities.

If these people are struggling to put food on the table today, why make them wait until 2007 or 2008 to collect the higher wage?

Under the bill Rendell signed, Pennsylvania's minimum wage will rise to $6.25 an hour on Jan. 1, 2007, then to $7.15 an hour on July 1, 2007. But the increase will be delayed for employers with 10 or fewer full-time employees (although franchises of larger chains will not qualify for that exemption). Employers that fall under the new law will pay $5.65 an hour beginning Jan. 1, 2007; $6.65 beginning July 1, 2007; and $7.15 on July 1, 2008.

When the Pennsylvania legislature gave its own members, the state's judges and the governor pay raises of 16 percent to 54 percent, legislators started collecting the pay raise right away. And they took the money despite a provision in the state constitution that says legislators can't collect a pay raise during their current term.

Hundreds of legislators who were making a base salary of $69,000 -- much higher than the minimum wage -- felt compelled to violate the state constitution and collected their pay raise within weeks of the July 7, 2005, vote. The pay raise that Rendell signed into law last year was eventually repealed, but some 70 legislators still refuse to give back the money they took during the four months the raise was in place. In some cases, those politicians made more in four months than a worker making minimum wage earns in an entire year.

Do you sense duplicity in what Rendell says and does? If Pennsylvania workers want to see a real increase in their standard of living, they need to boot out a tax-and-spend liberal like Ed Rendell.

Tony Phyrillas is a columnist for The Mercury in Pottstown, Pa. E-mail him at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com

Apparently, you weren’t reading the Altoona Mirror. There is one ad with a $5.15 job with the Mirror itself. And most of the other jobs with employment organizations such as Spherion, Advantages, and Adecco are for $7-$8 per hour tops. No Blair county company is going to pay unskilled labor $10/hour. And full-time, temporary with the POSSIBILITY of a permanent with no health benefits are the most common ads. And that is about what the mental health fields pay, too.

If you check PA CareerLink or PICCC, things aren’t much better in Blair county or the surrounding counties. You can’t tell what many jobs are paying because they say “competitive pay offered”. And many of the other advertisements for telemarketing (you can make up $XX.XX/hour) and sales postions that usually say “possibly up to $XX,XXX -$XXX,XXX per year salaries” which are not typical results. The jobs that pay a decent or worthwhile amount are the ones requiring a certain amount of experience, education, and/or specific background such as certified teachers, nurses, engineers, and truckers.

No. I didn't post the other, and I understand what Tony is writing in regards to. My previous writing may not have been clear enough in my attempt to show that though the paper listed ONE minimum wage job, it's difficult to find what the other jobs pay when the salary is listed as "competitive pay" or there is none listed at all. $5.15 could be the "competitive pay" these companies are offering but may been too embarrassed to publish the salary, or want to waste people's time in hopes of finding some sucker to do work for that kind of money. And this goes for both employment ads in the papers, and employment ads on job websites.

One point I do want to make is that wages that are paid in one area of the state may be much different than what the wages paid in another portion of the state for the same job.

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"With all its misleading promises about the benefits of a casino, maybe Chance investors really do think they are running a charitable institution. We certainly do not begrudge them their attempt to profit from Pennsylvania's decision to legalize gambling; we only ask that they find someplace else to put their casino. They can put their slot machines anywhere, but no one can move Gettysburg's hallowed ground."--Jim Lighthizer, CWPT

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"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern...Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." --Lord Acton

"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" --Patrick Henry

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." --Thomas Paine

"The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice" --John Adams

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." --Thomas Jefferson

"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him; the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights." --Thomas Jefferson

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens." --Thomas Jefferson

"The protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." --Thomas Jefferson

"To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call." --Thomas Jefferson

"It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it." --Thomas Jefferson

"I am ever unwilling that [peace] should be disturbed as long as the rights and interests of the nations can be preserved. But whensoever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies." --Thomas Jefferson

"By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson

"Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations." --Thomas Jefferson

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"By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." --Thomas Jefferson

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"There is nothing so comfortable as money, but nothing so defiling if it be come by unworthily; nothing so comfortable, but nothing so noxious if the mind be allowed to dwell upon it constantly. If a man have enough, let him spend it freely. If he wants it, let him earn it honestly. Let him do something for it, so that the man who pays it to him may get its value. But to think that it may be got by gambling, to hope to live after that fashion, to sit down with your fingers almost in your neighbours pockets, with your eye on his purse, trusting that you may know better than he some studied calculations as to the pips concealed in your hands, praying to the only god you worship that some special card may be vouchsafed to you, that I say is to have left far, far behind you, all nobility, all gentleness, all manhood!" --Anthony Trollope: The Duke's Children